Tag Archives: E-Safety

This week as part of our Safety Week Mr Little and Mr Sieczkarek conducted an experiment with all classes in Year 3 and Year 4 to see just how safe we really were while using the internet.

For the experiment we were told that we would be playing an online game on the iPad. The game we played was Yahtzee. We had to roll five dice to try and get the highest score possible. After a while we noticed that this game had a chat feature and that we had received a message from someone called Max2009Smith. We chatted to Max and he seemed really nice, he told us his name, age, school and that he was off school because he was poorly. He asked for our personal information and we told him our full name, age, street name and school. Unfortunately, we weren’t really playing against Max Smith, we…

All week our pupils have been working with different teachers in school experiencing varied and worthwhile lessons and activities associated with all things safety. I worked with one of my Y3 teachers to look at E-Safety and in particular, online chat rooms.

Mr Little worked with all the Y3 and Y4 classes and played Yahtzee online. That game had a chat room and I was in my office, secretly playing with them. To them I was a stranger. I chatted to them and tested them to see what information they would provide to a total stranger pretending to be a boy called Max. Some classes were harder to crack than others, but after 30 minutes, without fail, I, as a stranger to them, had extracted personal information. I managed to get: school name, city, first and last names, ages and street names.

Pupils in our school were aware of the dangers of talking online. In theory, they knew all the rules. But in practice, with persuasion, they offered personal information. This exercise was so worthwhile. All our children are much more wise to online dangers and in particular how to handle these situations for real. This activity has highlighted that we, as a school, must also share the findings of this ‘experiment’ with all our parents to ensure that they are much more vigilant when their children are talking online.

Visit the other class blogs to see all the Safety Week work we have been embarking on.